“We think the election’s going to be about, you know, public safety, about China, and about who they think is going to help build the economy,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL).
Yeah, good luck with that. No wonder the new Quinnipiac poll shows Biden ahead in Florida by 13 points.
Honestly, it appears that many members of the GOP senate are just blindly hurling themselves over the cliff regardless of what Trump is or isn’t doing. The caucus is in chaos and it’s going to result in continuing the suffering of a whole lot of Americans.
The emerging legislation is likely to be the last major coronavirus-focused bill to clear Congress before Election Day. If it does even some of what the CARES Act did—direct stimulus checks with Trump’s name on them, extended unemployment insurance, more money for testing and treatment—it could give the president, and his re-election campaign, a much-needed shot in the arm.
But Senate Republicans aren’t sure how lengthy a legislative lifeline to toss to the president—or even if they should hand one at all. Some lawmakers have a narrow, targeted extension of benefits in mind, while self-described fiscal hawks who are close Trump allies have started to loudly skewer the idea of another trillion-dollar bill, arguing that Trump would be damaged more if he approved such a bill than if he did not.
“I think that the conservative base is tired of spending money we don’t have,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), “and actually exploding the debt by $5 trillion in six months offends a lot of conservatives in the party.”
Another staunch Trump ally in the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), said it “boggles my mind” that the GOP conference isn’t more united in questioning the need for more spending. Speaking with The Daily Beast off the Senate floor on Thursday, Johnson rattled off figures about the growing federal debt and deficit during the crisis, something he argued should give all lawmakers pause about another package.
“I don’t think it’d be a problem not passing this trillion dollars. Not at all,” said Johnson, when asked if the lack of another coronavirus bill would be a political problem for Trump. “You take a look at what we haven’t spent of the $2.9 trillion [already appropriated] and spend it better.”
Passage of a narrower bill—rather than the broad, $1 trillion package that GOP leaders are eyeing, or even a delayed infusion of funds—could be a political disaster for all involved given the imminent deadlines ahead: extended unemployment insurance expires at the end of July, as does a moratorium on evictions, threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans made newly vulnerable by the pandemic.ADVERTISING
But as Senate Republicans struggled to even get to the starting line to negotiations with Democrats—on Thursday, a draft agreement between GOP lawmakers and the White House was set to be introduced but was then scuttled to Monday—there seemed to be little alarm that falling short in countering the crisis gripping the country would have any kind of negative impact on Trump’s quest for another four years.
This is an unusual electoral strategy, to say the least. But is it really surprising? The GOP has completely rotted its collective brain with overexposure to talk radio, Fox News and Donald Trump. It was inevitable.